


seratonin

by writerbitch_letsgooo



Category: RIORDAN Rick - Works, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Anyways yeah, F/F, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbians, So yeah, They are gay, and i needed my fix of them being fluffy, and i think that's pretty nice, and like actual development, but he's unimportant - Freeform, enjoy, for each other, i just think these two are neat, i tried lmfao, if you've read my chatfic you might like knowing that they are at THE PLACE, there's a super minor oc, there’s also some very PG kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 15:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30125202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerbitch_letsgooo/pseuds/writerbitch_letsgooo
Summary: It's the anniversary of the Battle of San Francisco Bay. It was always going to be a rough day, but maybe Lavinia can make it a little better if she's with the person she loves most.-Title fromseratoninbygirl in red.
Relationships: Lavinia Asimov/Poison Oak
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	seratonin

_I'm running low on serotonin  
Chemical imbalance got me twisting things  
Stabilize with medicine_

It was always going to be difficult, the anniversary of the battle. Lavinia knew this, had tried to prepare herself. She knew it was going to hurt.  
So when she woke up that morning with tears in her eyes, she wasn’t surprised. It was almost a relief. She felt something, not just numbness. She still wished it was something more jovial, more auspicious.  
The pale early morning sun slipped through her darkened curtains, a clear indication of a cloudy day.  
“Good morning,” she murmured to herself as she stretched and cracked her joints.  
The sounds of the morning suddenly sharpened- the singing of the birds, the rustling of the sheets as she shifted to a sitting position, the faint whining of a violin from down the hall, melancholy to the bones in every note, every vibration that rang through the air a tear to salt the earth.  
As much as she tried to pretend it was a normal morning- which generally consisted of making herself a cup of earl grey tea, burning her tongue on it, not drinking it until it was so cold that it would leave a rather unpleasant taste in her mouth, and cracking several jokes with the rest of the Fifth Cohort before heading off to see to her duties (and her girlfriend)- she just couldn’t.  
There was an undeniable tension in the air when she got to breakfast. No one was speaking, just existing and breathing and maybe, possibly nibbling on some toast.  
Lavinia felt like she was going to vomit. There was a tightness in her chest, a knot in her stomach- something she recognized as bitter grief.  
She ran her fingers through her hair and settled into the silence.  
“So…” she said to a boy with blonde hair and tapped her fingers on the table, so unusually loud. “How are you?”  
She knew it was his first day. From the tension in his shoulders, to his furrowed eyebrows and the nervous gleam in his eye, he seemed utterly and completely lost. He looked around her age, maybe a year younger.  
“Huh?” he asked, eyes flicking up to her.  
She tried to be gentle, but softness wasn’t exactly her nature. She was loud and stubborn and bright. Nevertheless, she spoke barely above a whisper, hoping to distract herself from the growing dread in her. “How are you? What’s your name?”  
He stuttered a little. “O-oh, I’m, um, Benji. I-I’m just… you know, getting used to all this…”  
She nodded. “I get it. Shit’s confusing, but we’ve just gotta keep on keeping on.”  
“Yeah,” he said. “Yes, I guess.”  
Lavinia smiled and stood up. “Hope you settle in soon, Benji, this is your new home.”  
She turned swiftly on her heel and headed out into the misty morning. The fresh air was comforting, if only slightly. Nevertheless, her mind wandered. She hadn’t been okay, not in a long while. She covered it in snark and humor, all that hurt, but she still dreamed of war.  
The nightmares were better when she was with Poison Oak, as were the bad days. The days where she just didn’t have the energy to get up, the days where she couldn’t breathe but couldn’t panic either, the days where she didn’t want to eat, where the sadness and anger and grief became so much- too much- that they became nothing at all, coils of darkness that just took and took and took and Lavinia didn’t take back. Poison Oak always made things better.  
In daze, Lavinia found herself walking to their place with intent. It was where they’d had their first date, their first kiss, their first proper fight. It was where they’d made-up, where they’d read poetry to each other and cracked jokes. Just the thought of the shade under the willow made her breathe easy. The hollow inside the wood where they could hide and kiss and laugh, the shadow the leaves cast upon their face, it was all so vivid and she found herself calling it home.  
“Home,” she muttered. “Home.”  
She was unsurprised to find Poison Oak sat underneath the tree. She was playing with a golden lyre in her lap, plucking idly at the strings.  
The fog clung to the grass around them, but the dryad seemed clear as class, a marvelous, beautiful, clever stain upon the backdrop. She was the clarity in the jumbled mess in Lavinia’s head.  
“Po,” Lavinia called.  
The dryad’s head shot up, her slightly open mouth quickly twisting into a soft smile. She set the lyre down beside her and sat up straighter. Her skin was an olive sort of green, eyes amber. Her hair was tightly coiled brown and emerald, glistening even in the faint light.  
“'vinia! Come over here, I’m in desperate need of kisses.”  
Lavinia let out a laugh, but it sounded awkward and forced. She settled herself next to her girlfriend, offering out her hands palm-up.  
Poison Oak grabbed them softly and squeezed. “You okay, 'vinia?”  
The daughter of Terpsichore nodded hesitantly. “Yeah, just… you know…”  
“Oh,” the dryad said. For all their teasing and playful fighting, they were always there for each other. “It’s today, isn’t it?”  
Lavinia worried her bottom lip and looked down at where her and Poison Oak’s hand’s met. “Yeah. A year ago and we were going to war.”  
Poison Oak lifted a hand to cup Lavinia’s cheek, stroked her thumb across her rosy cheek. She slid it down to her jaw and lifted her face. “It’s okay to grieve, 'vinia.”  
Lavinia nodded. Her eyes were brimming with tears, red and burning. There was an ache hidden behind them, one the dryad could see clear as day. The pain seemed to seep through their skin, connect them, and it wasn’t even five seconds later that they were both crying.  
They pulled each other closer and clung on tightly, hands everywhere and nowhere at all. Perhaps they feared if they let go, the other would slip away.  
Lavinia buried her fingers in Poison Oak’s hair, curled them in and tugged so her lips were barely a breath away. She planted a soft kiss on them and pulled back. She smiled weakly.  
“Gods, I love you so much,” she breathed.  
Poison Oak leaned back in. They kissed for a lingering moment, caressing each other oh-so gently. “I love you, too.”  
It was the two of them in those moments beneath the willow tree. Lips and hands and laughs, ordinarily. Now they could taste the salt of their tears when they came together again, but at least they were kissing. It was rhythm then, no indication of more, until they pulled back for breath.  
“You’re about to say something sappy,” Poison Oak said, laughter lining her voice.  
“I literally just want to cry right now,” Lavinia said flatly.  
“You’re gonna quote Sappho, I can sense it.”  
Lavinia chuckled and pulled a hand to her face to wipe the tears away. “Oh, can you now?”  
“I feel it in my bones,” Poison Oak said with a smirk.  
“Alright, I was gonna quote Sappho-”  
“I fucking knew it.”  
“But I think it’s relevant to me wanting to cry.”  
The dryad gave her girlfriend a sad smile. She brushed a strand of pink hair behind her ear, let her hand fall to the demigod’s chest. She pressed a kiss to her cheeks, to her nose, to her forehead, and to her lips. “Do tell.”  
Lavinia cleared her throat and closed her eyes, as if she was trying to soak in everything about this moment, to have the feeling of being so in love ingrained in her memory she could write poetry about it later. “What cannot be said will be wept.”  
Poison Oak inhaled, like she was breathing in the words. “She always has a quote for us, no? Exactly what we need.”  
“There’s only one thing that can make this crying session better.”  
Poison Oak raised an eyebrow. “What? What is it?”  
Lavinia reached for her pocket and produced two sticks of bubblegum, pink as her hair. “Bubblegum.”  
They both knew there would be bad days, that there would be days like this they couldn’t avoid. They knew they wouldn’t ever be fully okay, but they also knew that they had each other. And what a miracle that was. 

_Dig deep, can't hide_  
From the corners of my mind  
I'm terrified of what's inside 

**Author's Note:**

> The way I love them and we didn't even meet Poison Oak in the books is honestly almost absurd, but here we are.  
> -  
> Comments are appreciated!


End file.
